Sunday, October 18, 2009

Korea’s young people during Choson Dynasty

Young people were the pillar of the Choson dynasty. They worked in many different ways to help their country grow stronger and healthier. The things that they worked on always influenced Choson dynasty a lot.

Religion

The young people living during the Choson dynasty had known both Confucianism and Buddhism came from China. When more people began be living in Buddhism, it was driven out by the government. The government destroyed temples and stupa, so anyone who had relation with Buddhism was killed during the Choson dynasty. Some of them ran away, but most people gave up and changed their religion quickly.

Choson was interested in Neo- Confucianism and used it to help them rule their country. When the emperor, Hanja, came to the power, Catholicism came into Korea through missionaries from China. They also brought knowledge of Astronomy. Christianity reached its height and even some government ministers began to receive baptism.

A few years later, Catholicism was driven out simply because the Choson dynasty didn’t like Westerners in their country. But the missionaries from China snuck into Korea to do their work anyway. Soon, the government started to kill Catholics including those government ministers. Many promising teenagers were killed；therefore their lives were harsh, and they couldn’t have their own beliefs except Confucianism.

Education

Young people at this time had to follow the government’s order to study. They did this in order to help them to earn money, power, and respect. The government also set up many organizations about Confucianism. They used it to control the country. Confucianism taught that the ruler should be kind and virtus. People needed to study Confucianism, because the Choson dynasty used the same imperial examination as China. People who passed the exam could become scholar-officials. If they wanted to be officials, they needed to devote a lot of time to study. Therefore, they had to follow Confucianism closely; in this way the Confucianism became their main focus.

Art, culture and daily life

Young people’s lives were difficult, because the Japanese pirates always attacked their country. And most of them had to pay with military service or they could pay money and crops. Choson’s young people always wrote poems to express their mood and it named Sijo. They often wrote about the things around them. Most of the poems were about wars and in the daily life. Painting was also important to them, because young people started to have their own style that different from China. Young people’s creations were about not only source material but also the interest filled with the flavor of Choson dynasty.